GAO-02-204R Attacking Time Critical Targets

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

November 30, 2001

The Honorable Jerry Lewis

Chairman, Subcommittee on Defense

Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives

Subject: Joint Warfighting: Attacking Time-Critical Targets

Dear Mr. Chairman:

This letter responds to your request that we review the Department of Defense’s

(DOD) efforts to enhance its ability to attack time-critical targets.1

 While DOD has

developed and fielded considerable capability to detect, assess, and attack most fixed

enemy targets, experiences in the Persian Gulf and more recently in Kosovo revealed

that DOD has limited ability to rapidly identify and strike time-critical targets, such as

mobile Scud2 and surface-to-air missile sites. Such targets proved to be elusive when

our adversaries were able to move critical assets to safety in a shorter time frame

than it takes us to implement the sensor-to-shooter process. In fact, the time needed

to effectively attack mobile targets is much shorter than DOD’s established 30 to 72

hour targeting cycle for attacking most fixed targets.

DOD studies have pointed to a variety of reasons for why it takes too long to be in a

position to strike time-critical targets. Chiefly, the systems involved in the sensor-toshooter process do not operate effectively together. There are over 100 command,

control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems that

are needed to identify and strike targets. But these are separately owned and

operated by each of the military services as well as other DOD and intelligence

agencies. These separate systems have limited ability to interoperate, both

technically (such as incompatible data formats) and operationally. As a result, they

cannot easily and quickly exchange data; communication systems must be patched

together to make this happen. Compounding this problem is the fact that each

service has its own command, control, and communications structure that may

present barriers to interoperability. In fact, in a battle situation, the Joint Forces

Commander is faced with integrating, in an ad hoc manner, more than 400 different

mission and software applications.

 1

 These include targets that are of high value, require immediate response, or have a limited window of

vulnerability such as mobile theater missiles, surface-to-air missile launchers, and cruise missile

batteries.

2

 Scud missiles are mobile, short-range surface-to-surface missiles.
Page 2 GAO-02-204R Attacking Time-Critical Targets

DOD has undertaken numerous efforts to address these fundamental problems.

Primarily, DOD has developed guidance to help the military services achieve system

interoperability3

 as well as oversight controls, directives, and policies to ensure that

this guidance was being followed and that interoperability is being achieved. DOD

has also worked to develop joint capabilities through exercises and advance concept

technology demonstrations. The demonstrations focus on assessing emerging

technologies, such as those that would put targeting information into the hands of

commanders faster as well as new manned and unmanned sensors and weapons

platforms. Additionally, the individual services have undertaken a variety of efforts

to improve their own capability to attack time-critical targets. For example, the Air

Force is developing a new family of systems designed to attack time-critical targets

much more quickly. The Navy has an effort to network its sensors, command

centers, and long-range weapons. And the Army is working to improve the flow of

battlefield information.

While these efforts are helping DOD to make improvements in the sensor-to-shooter

process, considerably more needs to be done to significantly reduce the time it takes

to strike time-critical targets. First, DOD needs to overcome cultural impediments to

joint warfighting. Each of the military services still plans, acquires, and operates

systems to effectively meet its own operational concepts, but not necessarily the

requirements of joint operations. To facilitate the services’ different capabilities and

concepts of operation requires segmenting the battlefield with each military

component responsible for a specified area of the battlefield. And there is little

incentive to design common, integrated4

 systems. Naturally, this continues to result

in disparate systems. The Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that there are over 100

different operational architecture efforts. DOD’s Director for Interoperability also

estimates that there are $36 billion worth of systems the services plan to buy that

cannot operate effectively together.

Second, some of DOD’s current oversight and control mechanisms are simply not

working. For example, DOD’s Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) is the

primary certifier for ensuring that the military services’ command, control,

communications, and intelligence systems are interoperable and are able to exchange

information effectively during a joint mission. But DOD organizations have not

always complied with the interoperability testing and certification process.

Furthermore, according to a Defense Science Board study, the Joint Interoperability

Test Command does not have the facilities needed to test the interactions between

the services' weapon systems and information systems. The Joint Chiefs of Staff has

also recognized that its Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC)—which is

responsible for approving the services’ operational requirements for high-valued

systems—has not been focused on evaluating systems from a joint warfighting

perspective.

 3

 Interoperability is essentially the ability of independent systems to provide and accept information

from other systems.

4

 Integrated systems extend beyond interoperability to form a network of interdependent systems.

Such integrated systems are expected to provide increased capabilities over disparate independent

systems that are capable of exchanging information.
Page 3 GAO-02-204R Attacking Time-Critical Targets

Third, DOD still lacks a joint service concept of operations to defeat time-critical

targets and, as a result, each military service plans and acquires systems to meet

requirements under its own concept of operations. A joint operational concept would

provide the necessary foundation for developing joint requirements for common

integrated systems. Once a joint operational concept is developed, a joint operational

architecture needs to be constructed to focus on how the services will work together

to carry out joint warfighting missions and help ensure that their operations are in

synchronization. Ultimately, this should lead to an enterprise architecture that would

include joint operational concepts and operational architectures, along with

comprehensive systems architectures. A comprehensive systems architecture would

provide the underlying blueprint for more detailed design and implementation

decisions about component systems. With a complete architecture, DOD would be

able to ensure that duplicative as well as disparate systems are not allowed to go

forward.

During our review, we discussed these and other problems with senior officials in the

military services and in DOD and found general agreement as to the causes of the

problems and additional steps needed. These steps are captured in a number of

recent DOD plans and initiatives. Importantly,

• The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review reinforces previous guidance by stating

that DOD must integrate combat forces and they must be highly networked with

joint command and control. The Review calls for developing a standing joint task

force that will develop an operational concept to address the critical operational

challenge--to continuously locate and track and attack time-critical targets. The

headquarters for these new forces would provide uniform standard operating

procedures, tactics, techniques, and technical system requirements. The standing

joint task force would undertake experimental exercises as new technologies

become available.

• In a July 2001 report, Network Centric Warfare, DOD proposed establishing an

Office of Transformation to ensure adequate focus on improving joint networkcentric warfighting capabilities and to help overcome impediments to progress

such as cultural, organizational, and other barriers. It stated that network-centric

warfare and operations should be the cornerstone of DOD’s strategic plan for

transformation of the forces. The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review reported

plans to appoint a Director for Force Transformation to foster innovation and

experimentation, who will report to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of

Defense.

• The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and

Intelligence recently issued a strategic plan for integrating intelligence,

surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.

• The Joint Chiefs of Staff is developing joint operational concepts and

architectures that are needed to achieve joint integrated warfighting capabilities.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command is also developing joint operational concepts,

including time-critical targeting, as well as conducting joint experiments and

testing of its new warfighting concepts in collaboration with the services.
Page 4 GAO-02-204R Attacking Time-Critical Targets

• The Joint Chiefs of Staff is strengthening reviews conducted by its Joint

Requirements Oversight Council to ensure that individual systems establish

interoperability as a key performance parameter (requirement). The Joint

Requirements Oversight Council also plans to change its approach to its review of

major systems’ operational requirements by ensuring that they have a more “joint”

focus that addresses the warfighters’ needs rather than a “service” focus.

These and other new efforts are further described in enclosure I.

It is too early to determine whether these steps will enable DOD to overcome the

challenges associated with achieving more common, integrated systems necessary

for effectively attacking time-critical targets. As such, we will continue to monitor

these initiatives. In particular, we plan to monitor whether and how well DOD is

overcoming impediments such as cultural barriers. Undoubtedly, this will be the

most critical challenge for DOD. Past efforts to focus on system development from a

DOD-wide perspective versus a service-perspective have failed because the services

were unwilling to forego their unique requirements in favor of requirements that

would benefit the department as a whole. At the same time, DOD did not have a

sustained commitment from its top leaders or did not successfully implement

management policies and funding controls needed to overcome service resistance.

We also plan to monitor whether and how well DOD develops, implements, and

enforces a joint concept of operations and a joint operational architecture. Our

previous reviews have shown that while the absence of a complete architecture does

not guarantee the failure of system modernization efforts, it does greatly increase the

risk that agencies will spend more time and money than necessary to ensure that

systems are compatible and in line with mission needs. Again, however, developing a

joint concept of operations and a joint operational architecture, and ultimately an

enterprise architecture, will be extremely challenging because it will require DOD to

obtain consensus from the services and others on high-level issues such as creating a

joint command and control structure—something that has not yet been achieved on

such a large scale.

Lastly, we plan to monitor whether DOD is putting in the right tools to guide its

efforts to success. These include a central clearinghouse to review and coordinate

the implementation of the many different service and DOD initiatives to reduce the

risk of overlap and duplication and increase opportunities for knowledge sharing.

These also include specific guidance on where DOD specifically wants to go in terms

of systems interoperability so that oversight and control entities have a solid

foundation for deciding whether individual efforts will complement each other and

link to DOD’s overall goals.

Agency Comments

DOD provided oral comments on a draft of this report. DOD noted that our report

makes several pertinent observations and that it would consider our comments when

addressing solutions. It further stated that the recent Defense Planning Guidance has

placed emphasis on attack of time-critical targets. DOD also provided technical

corrections that we incorporated where appropriate.
Page 5 GAO-02-204R Attacking Time-Critical Targets

Scope and Methodology

During our review we analyzed an extensive array of DOD policy, planning, and

guidance documents, official publications, statements, reports and other

assessments, and open literature addressing attacking time-critical targets,

interoperability, and joint warfighting capabilities to develop a better understanding

of the key issues affecting progress. We also met with a broad spectrum of key

defense officials in various offices and commands to discuss the problems facing the

military in attacking time-critical targets, the need for integrating the capabilities

necessary for detecting, tracking, communicating, deciding, and attacking timecritical targets; and the need for developing a joint concept of operations which

would provide the framework for determining the joint warfighting requirements that

would be critical in developing new or modified systems needed to attack timecritical targets. DOD offices visited included the Office of the Secretary of Defense

(Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; Command, Control, Communications and

Intelligence; and Operational Test and Evaluation); the Joint Staff; the U.S. Joint

Forces Command; the Air Force’s Air Combat Command and Aerospace Command

and Control, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Center; the Navy Warfare

Development Command; service representatives; and others.

We conducted our review from February 2000 to October 2001 in accordance with

generally accepted government auditing standards.

Unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of

this report until 5 days from its issue date. At that time, we will send copies of this

report to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of the

Army, the Secretary of the Navy, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. We will make copies available to others on request

and through the GAO home page at http://www.gao.gov.

We plan to keep you informed on the results of our monitoring efforts that relate to

DOD’s efforts to improve interoperability and shorten the time needed to strike timecritical targets. In the interim, if you have questions about the initiatives described in

this letter or the challenges DOD now faces, please call me at (202) 512-4841. Other

major contributors to this work include William Gillies and Mary Quinlan.

Sincerely yours,

James F. Wiggins

Director

Acquisition and Sourcing Management

Enclosure
Enclosure I Enclosure I

Page 6 GAO-02-204R Attacking Time-Critical Targets

Description of Recent Initiatives to Address Interoperability Problems

Quadrennial Defense Review

Summary: This review was intended to develop a new strategy for the defense of the United States. Decisions

taken on strategy, forces, capabilities, and risks resulted from months of deliberation and consultation

among senior Department of Defense (DOD) leadership.

The review calls for developing new joint forces that come under joint command and control and that are

highly networked. The forces would be lighter, more lethal and maneuverable, survivable, and more

readily deployed and employed in an integrated fashion.

To enable a common relevant operational picture of the battlespace, the review calls for enhancing

communications networks and systems to provide shared situational awareness and integration of joint

fires, maneuver, and intelligence.

The review calls for establishing a standing joint task force headquarters, which would provide uniform,

standard operating procedures, tactics, techniques, and technical system requirements, with the ability to

move expertise among commands. The headquarters is to have a standardized operational architecture.

The review states that DOD will examine the option of establishing a standing joint task force to address

the critical operational challenge of locating, tracking, and attacking mobile targets at any range with

precision.

The review also calls for undertaking experimental exercises, as new technologies become available.

Status: Report issued September 2001.

Report on Network-Centric Warfare

Summary: This report to the Congress was directed by section 934 of the National Defense Authorization Act for

Fiscal Year 2001 (P. L. 106-398).

Network-centric warfare is described as a set of warfighting concepts and associated military capabilities

that allow warfighters to take advantage of all available information and bring all available assets to bear

in a rapid and flexible manner.

Network-centric warfare is not a fully developed and deployable warfighting capability. In fact,

applications of network-centric warfare theory have been limited, but early experimentation has shown

justification for its impact on future combat forces.

DOD’s strategy for implementing network-centric warfare is to (1) set priorities in developing and

implementing network-centric concepts and capabilities, such as the capability to self-synchronize its

operations, and achieve secure and seamless connectivity, (2) measure success, and (3) overcome

obstacles that are cultural, organizational, technical and administrative. To ensure adequate focus in

implementing this strategy, an Office of Transformation, reporting to the Secretary of Defense, will be

established.

The report acknowledges that each service is actively acquiring service-centric time-critical targeting

capabilities without an integrating effort to address a joint architecture.

Status: Report issued July 2001.
Enclosure I Enclosure I

Page 7 GAO-02-204R Attacking Time-Critical Targets

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Integrated Capstone Strategic Plan

Summary: The Assistant Secretary of Defense, Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence, issued this

plan to provide a structure and methodology for guiding intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

toward an integrated capability to maintain information superiority. DOD envisions a system that brings

together a joint and combined force of national, theater, and tactical sensors, commanders and shooters

to strike targets rapidly at extended ranges. DOD also envisions a new operational concept to attack

time-critical targets that integrates command and control authorities; command and control, intelligence,

surveillance, and reconnaissance systems; and, shooters.

Status: Plan issued November 2000.

Joint Chiefs of Staff/ U.S. Joint Forces Command

Summary: Revised Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Instruction designated interoperability as a (mandatory) key

performance parameter for systems that exchange information. Interoperability requirements must be

addressed in the operational requirements document approved by the Joint Requirements Oversight

Council and evaluated by the U.S. Joint Forces Command based on a warfighter’s perspective.

Interoperability key performance parameters will be tested and certified by the Joint Interoperability Test

Command.

The JROC plans to change its approach to its review of major systems’ operational requirements by

ensuring that they have a more “joint” focus that addresses the warfighter’s need rather than a service

focus.

JCS is planning to develop, using its Joint Warfighting Capabilities Assessments, joint operational

concepts for its critical warfighting functions, including precision engagement and dominant maneuver.

These operational concepts will guide future sensor to shooter system acquisitions. They will also serve

as a foundation for joint operational architectures that will provide the framework for developing a systemof-systems solution to time-critical targeting.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command is responsible for developing new operational concepts, including

attacking time-critical targets, and executing joint experimentation as it develops new joint warfighting

concepts.

Status: The JCS’s instruction “Interoperability and Supportability of National Security Systems, and Information

Technology Systems” (CJCSI 6212.01B) was issued May 2000.

Global Information Grid (GIG)

Summary: The Global Information Grid provides a very broad high-level concept to integrate information capabilities

and is expected to meet the needs of the individual services as they develop solutions to address the

limitations in attacking time-critical targets. The advancement of the global information grid would benefit

from incorporating joint operational concepts as it forms architectures needed in developing joint

warfighting capabilities.

Status: Ongoing.
Enclosure I Enclosure I

Page 8 GAO-02-204R Attacking Time-Critical Targets

The Family of Interoperable Pictures (FIOP)

Summary The Family of Interoperable Pictures (FIOP) is a methodology for addressing the lack of a coherent view

of the battlefield. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense/Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics,

Interoperability is the lead proponent for the FIOP and the JROC has directed implementation of a

strategy, to be led by the Air Force, to develop a joint concept of operation needed to provide an allsource picture of the battlefield. This initiative requires that a joint concept of operations be developed

before developing requirements.

Status Ongoing.

Air Force Efforts

Summary The Air Force is developing a new family of systems to attack time-critical targets that are expected to

reduce attack times. For example, the time-critical targeting cell initiative will provide the air component

commander’s air operations center an ability to detect and direct forces to attack targets quickly. The

theater battle management core system is expected to merge several legacy systems such as its air

tasking order system, which controls employment of fixed wing aircraft in the battle area with new

capabilities, to reduce the timelines to attack time-critical targets.

Status Ongoing.

Navy Efforts

Summary The Navy is developing a new series of systems for its time-critical strike future naval capability program,

such as the real time execution decision support (REDS) initiative.

The Navy is also working on a network-centric warfare concept that will network Navy sensors, command

centers, and its long-range weapons to attack a broader range of targets (including those in the deep

battle area) more effectively. This concept includes a vast array of procurement and research and

development weapon systems, ships, aircraft, and command and control, communications, intelligence

and reconnaissance programs.

The Navy is considering the need for new command and control ships to provide the Navy with the

capability to control deployed joint forces while stationed off shore.

Status Ongoing.

Army Efforts

Summary The Army is continuing to fund its Battlefield Digitization initiative, which is designed to improve the flow of

battlefield information within the Army’s fighting organizational structure.

The Army is also developing a transformation strategy, which is designed to ensure that the Army could

respond to a broad range of operations. The strategy centers on developing a combat force that is

expected to be lighter, but just as powerful and survivable as today’s heavy force. This new force will be

planned around Future Combat systems. These systems will provide the capability to attack critical

targets much deeper in the battle area before they become a direct threat.

Status Ongoing.

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